27-year-old Aliia Nasyrova has been growing her hair out for the past 20 years. When she was little, she’d fallen in love with the fairy tale, Rapunzel, and was inspired by it to grow her hair to that length as well.
“I started to grow my hair because since childhood I liked long hair very much. And I was always attracted by long hair heroines from fairy tales,” she explained.
Now, after two decades of careful hair maintenance and growth, Nasyrova’s hair is 90 inches long – longer than she is tall – and weighs about 2 kilograms. This is the same weight of her cat. Every day, Nasyrova spends an hour combing her hair and waiting for a full 24 hours for it to completely dry.
It’s not just Nasyrova who has to tend to her hair. Her husband, Ivan Balaban, also has to take particular care to take note of his wife’s hair.
Balaban has admitted that he considers his wife’s hair “a member of the family,” and even makes a point of leaving it a part of the bed when he goes to sleep. “I am always cuddling up the wall [when in bed] to give more space for hair, so there is no way I can damage it accidentally, mix them up or harm it any other way,” he explained.
“I always talk to the braid respectfully. Sometimes I ask it to move a bit,” he added.
Whenever the two of them want to take a trip, they always have to take Nasyrova’s hair into extra consideration. “When we are going away to somewhere we always plan the entire day for it since we understand that otherwise we will lose one day from our vacation and we will have to sit inside at home,” Balaban said.
Nasyrova, however, does take care of her hair to make it as easy to handle as possible. At home, she does often step on her own hair, but whenever she goes out, she’ll always make a point of braiding it tightly to avoid any mishaps.
The woman – and ever her husband – are very proud of her signature long locks. Balaban once even expressed pride in his wife for not cutting it shorter, just to be more similar to other women her age.
But this isn’t, unfortunately, the same impression that many others have.
“I often receive messages from people who don’t like the length of my hair or my hair itself,” Nasyrova admitted, “but I do not react to it. Some people write, ‘Cut it, sell it or get rid of it.’”
Nasyrova always ignores these comments. She trims her hair regularly to avoid split ends, but ever since she got gum stuck in her hair when she was little, she’s avoided cutting her hair ever since.
People wonder if the woman is simply trying to get into the Guinness World Record Book, but she makes sure to correct them. “I don't have a dream to get into the Guinness World Record Book since I believe the current registered record for longest hair is more than five metres - but I think I have longest hair in Latvia,” she said proudly.
